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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827221">Ode</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur'>Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wolf's Rain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2021, Mentioned Hige, Mentioned Kiba, Mentioned Toboe, Mentioned Tsume, Post-Canon, Reincarnation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:40:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>814</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827221</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cheza's grandmother used to tell her folktales.</p><p>They feel important, but sometimes, she wonders if she truly understands why.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Blue/Cheza (Wolf's Rain)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>femslash february music fest</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ode</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cheza’s grandmother used to tell her folktales.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They feel important, but sometimes, she wonders if she truly understands why, her head nonetheless walking her constantly down paths thick with flowers and walled with the sounds of wolves and insects and owls, a promise that </span>
  <em>
    <span>somewhere to be</span>
  </em>
  <span> awaits at the end of the line; as she goes about her errands in town with her shoulders wrapped in a cloak she’s been told looks just like the girls in those fairytales wear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s asked others what those stories mean to them, in hopes of figuring it out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boy who sleeps behind the academy and who she shares her groceries with sometimes seemed to agree that they’re important most of all, his voice going whispering-wind breathy as something came over him, talking about paradises at the end of long and winding roads and wanting her to stay and discuss them with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Unfortunately, and, perhaps, ironically, she’d had somewhere to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d meant to continue talking, next time, but she hasn’t seen him since.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe even without theorizing, </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>has found a long and winding road.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boy who works at the club where her sister pours wine said he finds </span>
  <em>
    <span>those </span>
  </em>
  <span>stories stupid. Said he prefers his stories to end in the same world where they begin, with rogues and bands of heroes finding something that was hidden in plain sight - a purpose or a place just for themselves, or the trick to get them out of trouble.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She was pleasantly surprised that he’d had any opinion on the subject at all, and had laughed about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t minded.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The child who feeds stray cats likes all stories. He talked about ones of nobles’ romances and of tricking beasts for their treasure and of befriending beasts for their aid, too, in the end. He asked her which her favorites were, and laughed on realizing that they were the same: his grandmother, too, told him stories, every night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She understands: their importance to him is </span>
  <em>
    <span>home</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t think that’s quite it for her.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man who eats his lunches out in the marketplace, meanwhile, sees the value of a good story as simply a good time. She’d stood giggling, a hand up to her mouth, as he launched into his best retelling of one story as he performs it to his siblings, voice animated and full of swell and playful boom; became the spirit of another, voice faltering and coming back in mock-struggle and sobs. Once he’d finished, they both laughed, and said goodbyes, and somehow Cheza’d felt for some time like she had no more questions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(About anything, really, until the </span>
  <em>
    <span>wondering </span>
  </em>
  <span>had come back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She respects that for him, stories are whatever you make them into, but it’s not enough to quell her curiosity.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This leaves Blue, who has little opinion on the matter at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It occurs to Cheza that this is </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>she </span>
  <em>
    <span>wonders </span>
  </em>
  <span>so much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blue feels important, too. Cheza wants to know what she thinks most of all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sits on the edge of Blue’s bed where she lays on early-spring evenings, her fingers gliding across letters and her eyes shutting as she begins to lilt tales to familiar melodies and cadences and inflections; she hears Blue hum soft, pleased notes at the ends of tales, and turns to her with a giggle bouncing in her throat, pleased that she’s pleased to have listened, reaching over to sweep a hand through her hair as she gives her verdict.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels her nod under the touch as she says, with a steady, warm discipline, that she knows which stories are about perseverance, or about caution, or about loyalty. She admits, with just a note of sweetly-faltering apology, that she guesses she still doesn’t have a favorite; she’s done her best to learn these things already from a mix of a father who wasn’t really much a storyteller and simply doing the best she can, and so none of them really feel as if they’re for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Apart, that is, from the factor of Cheza’s reading, which is her favorite way to hear them, if nothing else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cheza holds that thought in mind, standing on the edge of the city waterfront, eyes shut at cool air off the harbor in her face, sweet scents of night-blooming plants wrapping around her, as she contemplates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She holds her book of stories framed in her arms under her cloak, thinking of the rhythms of words and beginning a song, wandering off the path to play, first, with the thoughts and tales of wolves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps she can find a tale that does, in fact, speak to Blue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles, already, in hopes of discovery.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And finding that it’s beginning in the song she’s singing feeling like one she belongs in, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’ll be able to find the </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect </span>
  </em>
  <span>song for Blue here, easily.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Written as a catch-up for ElasticElla's Femslash February Music Fest.</p><p>February 20th's Prompt: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkOFSejV_Kw">"Wonderland"</a> - Natalia Kills.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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